The incident renewed calls
for increased safety for the athletes.Fubo.tv

The driver who parked a police motorcycle on the Giro
d'Italia racecourse during Sunday's stage 9
wreaked havoc on the race by causing several riders to crash.

Nobody was seriously injured, but the dramatic crash forced one
rider to abandon the race with a broken finger and three
favorites to lose serious time.

The incident renewed calls for increased safety for the athletes.

With 15 kilometers to go, the peloton was racing at high speed
toward the finishing climb at Blockhaus. It was
the most critical day of this year's Giro so far, with the
general-classification riders looking at one another to see who
might attack and go for the race lead.

That's when Wilco Kelderman (Sunweb) clipped the motorbike and
went down with a number of riders. Kelderman
broke his finger and was to have X-rays.

Your browser does not support the video tag.
Fubo.tvA GIF shows Wilco Kelderman (Sunweb) clipping a police motorcycle on stage 9 of the Giro d'Italia.

Normally, race motorbikes park off the side of the road, not on
it, so the riders — racing closely together at high speed — would
not have expected to find a motorbike on the racecourse.

The motorbike "was stopped just after a right bend, we couldn't
see it till the last moment and could only shout," Sunweb rider
Chad Haga wrote on
Twitter.

Giro race director
Mauro Vegni said the driver of the motorcycle had made a
"mistake in judgment," but he added that he hoped the incident
would not ruin the work that the Italian state police has been
doing for years.

It's unclear why the motorbike driver had parked on the
racecourse instead of pulling off the road. TV commentator Daniel
Lloyd was among many who expressed frustration over the incident,
pointing out the "stupidity" of it.

"The influence motor vehicles have on pro bike racing is
ridiculous. I don't know what the answer is but it needs
sorting," Lloyd also wrote on Twitter.

Here's a longer look at the incident and the aftermath:

"Someone hits motorbike in front of me, nowhere to go but down,"
Thomas said. "I got back on, I got to the finish, but I knew
deep down there was no coming back from that," he
added.

"I was on the floor for quite a while and then waiting to get a
bike and everything. It was just a shame because that shouldn’t
happen."

Just landed to the news of what happened at #Giro2017 😧 Gutted for the team 😣

"The motorbike shouldn’t have been there – I think we all see
that," Team Sky boss Dave
Brailsford said. "But I’m sure the guy riding the motorbike
realises that too, and I’m sure he isn’t feeling too great about
it. So we leave it at that, but I do think we need to go back and
have a look at it, and ask the questions, why it happened."

He added: "But we always say this, we always say, 'We need to
move on,' but we’ve had deaths in cycling because of this and we
really have to just stop saying 'Move on' — we really have to do
something about it."

Antoine Demoitié
died after being hit by a motorbike at Gent-Wevelgem in 2016.
At the 2015 Tour of Flanders, the driver of a support vehicle
stuck Jesse Sergent and sent him crashing.

"Another bike race, another problem. The recent spate of
terrifying accidents in professional cycling ...
has incited fans, athletes, and coaches to carefully consider how
pro cycling is conducted and how it could be improved."

Criticism of Sunday's Giro incident came swiftly on social media:

Obstacles like that come at you very quickly at 60kph+, particularly when bunch spread across the road. https://t.co/zVy0wrjlae